


‘For winter’s rains and ruins are over

by ChronicBookworm



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, David Blaize - E. F. Benson
Genre: Banter, Crossover, Discussions of Colonialism, Friends to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24460696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicBookworm/pseuds/ChronicBookworm
Summary: Frank is determined to live his life at Cambridge on the straight and narrow - and not give in to any of his beastly urges. Then he meets Edmund Pevensie, and is instantly captivated...
Relationships: Frank Maddox/Edmund Pevensie
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23
Collections: Fandom 5K 2020





	‘For winter’s rains and ruins are over

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/gifts).



> Title from Swinbourne's Atalanta, the poem that Frank and David read when they're at David's house for the summer.

Frank did not consider Cambridge a second chance – men such as he so rarely got second chances, followed by those he knew from school, to the army, to the university, to work, and those that had one too often found themselves falling back into habits and patterns of their old lifestyle, squandering their opportunities to become clean and pure. No, technically, the army had been his second chance, and Cambridge would be his third. He wondered if he’d manage this time, or if there’d be a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth. He had the suspicion that this was something that he’d be living with forever – as long as he was in male company. But he could not afford to think that way. Here at Cambridge he had an opportunity, his third, to turn his life around again, to become the bastion of virtue he outwardly projected, all the while hiding his most depraved urges that he hadn’t acted on since meeting David –but yet that was not enough, for as long as those urges still existed in him, he was unworthy.

He needed to get over his indecency, his filth, now that he was separated from David, the main temptation. Two years in the army had failed to do the job – he still felt those lustful urges, but perhaps getting back to intellectual pursuits, purging his body of all that was impure, being again more separated from the temptations of the flesh (for the close association of all the fellows that was the case in army barracks had indeed posed heady temptation, and it had been all he could to resist it). But he was set – he would focus solely on his Greek. Although there he had chosen the wrong subject, if he wanted to overcome his mortal flaw, for what was Greek mythos if not full of poems and epics lauding the love between two men, and did he not see the shadow of himself and David in the tales of Achilles and Patroclus, Alexander and Hephaestion? Did they not represent the very thing he was trying to avoid?

For all he had been surrounded by fit and well-trained men in their prime, the rigors of army life, the lack of privacy, the bone tiredness as he sunk into bed each evening, and the misery of around him of the German populace, so soundly defeated, so poor, and so ashamed of the atrocities had been done in their name, had made it easy not to fall into temptation, but here at Cambridge, it was even worse than at school, for he was surrounded by beautiful men, and he had the leisure to appreciate them, and no Head or House master supervising him at every stage, nor any juniors looking at him with admiration and hero worship. No, here he was the junior, the one who looked at all around him in admiration, feeling rather small and unimportant. All the same, to admire them was all he could bring himself to do, for as soon as he wished to approach any, he thought of David, and how close he had come to ruining him, and how grateful David had been that he’d had the self-restraint not to.

There was one fellow in particular, Edmund Pevensie, who was also a first year at King’s. Frank was not the only one who admired him – in fact, he was rather universally admired. Edmund Pevensie was enchanting and had something regal in his bearing, and had a way of making whomever he spoke to feel like he was attending most closely, and that what you said was the most interesting thing he had ever heard. He was very hard not to be aware of – although they didn’t share many classes (for Pevensie was studying Modern Languages, with a particular focus on Russian and German), they did occasionally bump into one another during Formal Hall, or at various sports clubs where Pevensie naturally shone, or occasionally he would guest the don’s living room after dinner while Frank and his mates were there, smoking and lounging, and discussing everything from philosophy to linguistics to natural sciences to politics. Frank hoped he didn’t embarrass himself awfully during those occasions, because he had a vexing tendency to sometimes get tongue-tied around Pevensie, but he did feel better when he realised that it wasn’t just he who got tongue-tied, and that in fact, sometimes it felt like even the don wanted to impress Pevensie, for all he was just a fresher. It was clear Pevensie was used to commanding a room, but he wasn’t obnoxious about it, didn’t go seeking attention, the way David sometimes had. But like David, he used the attention to make others feel better about themselves. He had many of the qualities Frank had admired in David – the same general amusement at the follies of man, the same easiness in his own skin, and the same generosity of spirit. But Pevensie was his own person, and had many qualities David didn’t have, for all Frank felt awfully disloyal admitting it. He had a gravitas, and a dignity, that perhaps would come to David in time. Perhaps it was the experience of the army, that made men out of boys: the same way school was supposed to, and university – Frank did wonder if all those fine institutions claimed more than they could deliver, since it was unlikely that they all could make the same boy into a man; after all, it should only be a transformation made once. He mentioned this during one of the evenings, and sparked a discussion that lasted well into the night, about when boys became men, and what was required for manhood, and felt incredibly proud and accomplished. But usually it was Pevensie who shone. Mediaeval warfare was a particular interest of the Kings College Master, and it just so happened that Pevensie, for all he was studying Modern Languages and not History, knew more about it than even the don. He would always argue his points with eloquence and logic, and he knew so much, even, that sometimes it seemed like he had personal experience of the Middle Ages, and some of the others joked that he was a secret time traveller. Pevensie would usually play them off with some joke or other, but on some occasions, he looked almost like a sphinx, and Frank wondered what secrets he held.

Pevensie was the younger brother, and the elder Pevensie was also at Cambridge, in his third and final year. His presence did grant Pevensie minor some associated glory, for it was clear the two brothers were incredibly close, so Pevensie came to know all the upperclassmen – especially those who Pevensie major palled around with, which were those who were notable in some way, those who had ambition and drive, and were generally good sorts of fellows. Neither brother had much time for those who looked on their university days as just a fun romp, with no consequences, those who drank away their time, those who wrecked restaurants and then made their parents pay for damages. Frank didn’t have much respect for those fellows, either, and found he was better off ignoring them entirely, the same way the Pevensies did. Major had the same charismatic charm and easy leadership that minor had – if not more so. Often one would find Pevensie major dominating a crowd, with minor on the edges, sitting quietly with a private smile on his lips. Pevensie minor was more mysterious, which made him all the more enticing. Frank could so easily see himself falling in love, the way he had only loved once before.

*

There was, at Cambridge, an unspoken divide between those who had seen war and those who hadn’t – those who had been conscripted to the War, and those who had been called up after 1945, and between those who had done their Service in a quiet backwater place, and those who had been called upon to fight, even though the War had ostensibly been over.

It wasn’t a conscious divide, there was no deliberate exclusion to keep the others out, but they did tend to gravitate together, congregate in one end of the Hall. It wasn’t just the older fellows – those who were younger and had been disillusioned were also more than welcome. Some of the lads came home having seen brutality of the worst sort, and it wasn’t always those who had served in wartime, and it wasn’t always on the part of the enemy. They had little patience for the hero worship of the rest of them, who hadn’t seen war and who thought it was something glorious and heroic, who had swallowed the War Office propaganda unquestioningly – there had been some of those in the army with Frank, and some of them had even managed to keep hold of those naïve ideals through 18 months of National Service in Malaya. Frank was in awe of their self-delusion.

Frank had done National Service during peacetime, rather than been conscripted to the War, as had most of his fellow freshers, while most of the third-years belonged to those who had been called up during 1945. Frank had been stationed in Malaya. As a boy, he’d believed in the glory of the Empire, he’d believed that Britain was a civilising force on the colonies, that they were agents of Enlightenment and modernity. He no longer believed such things.

Pevensie should technically not belong with them – he had been 16 when the War ended, and had, as far as Frank would work out, spent his National Service in communications, which had given him an interest for languages but no real combat experience, yet he still fit in with those who did. Theories abounded – that ‘communications’ was a cover story for spy craft of some sort, perhaps even in the Soviet-controlled areas, that would explain some of his jadedness. Others thought his area had been particularly badly Blitzed, since he was from London, but he corrected those who asked, as he had been evacuated to the country (and had, it seemed, had a fairly good go of it, and had only good things to say about his evacuation), and had gone to school in the country as well. Not Marchester, but a smaller school, known as Hendon House, that was less prestigious. The Pevensies were middle class, and although it was of course a sliding scale, which class belonged to which school, Hendon House catered to pupils whose fathers were vicars, not Archdeacons, or factory managers, not factory owners, or doctors and solicitors rather than Lords and Honourables, unlike Marchester, which did cater to sons of Archdeacons, factory owners, and Honourables. Luckily in Cambridge the normal class-obsessed strictures loosened, and for once it mattered more what you knew than who you knew. Besides, Attlee’s government was currently leading the country on an equalising path, and the old class strictures were to be done away with. Out with the old, in with the new! Bring on the meritocracy!

Frank had his own circle of friends, and would have been quite happy pining for Pevensie from afar, like a flower would the sun, but fate, and Pevensie, had different ideas. The try-outs for the college tennis team were held a few weeks into term, and Frank was of course determined to make a place for himself. He came out of his last match having given it all, and fairly pleased with how he’d done.

“I say, that was a smashing game, Maddox,” said someone from behind him, and when he turned around, there was Pevensie, done with his own game. “I was watching from the sides, you really know what you’re doing.”

“Thanks,” said Frank dumbly, adrenaline still coursing through his veins, panting heavily, and trying to drink water from his flask in deep gulps. He had no notion Pevensie had even known who he was, and it felt a bit like being noticed by a King. Frank was hit by the absurd notion that he ought to bow. Luckily, he managed to constrain himself.

Pevensie had clearly not bothered to change –his hair was plastered to his forehead where drops of sweat had gathered like dew drops, his shirt clung to him, and his shorts revealed a pair of perfectly shaped legs, with strong thighs and curved calves. Seldom had Frank seen such a perfect specimen of the male form, so much strength and grace packed into one. He stammered out a reply to Pevensie’s compliment, hardly knowing of what he said. It must have been the right one, for Pevensie grinned, and suddenly he had an invite to Pevensie’s room later that evening after Hall.

This was the start of their friendship. They spent many a day playing tennis, where they were fairly evenly matched – although Frank had a slight edge – and cricket, where Edmund was by a fraction the superior, or reading poems to each other, and essays for the other to criticise, and having discussions about the meaning of life, and the world they would like to see, now that Europe was recreating herself from the ashes, and England’s role in the new world (he was not too surprised to find that Edmund was an ardent anti-colonialist, like Frank, although he did make an exception for a hypothetical group of islands that was under the influence of two competing countries, and one country kept sovereignty over the islands to protect them from the other, but Lucy asked him to keep the discussion to examples from this world. When Frank agreed, saying he was talking about colonialism in the real world, all four siblings winced, for some reason), and how to rebuild England and make the country fit for all her citizens, where Edmund showed a great deal of insight into statecraft, and made Frank wonder why he hadn’t chosen to study Politics. They also talked of nothing at all, of nonsense, made up their own stories – Edmund had great tales of the stars, talked about them as living persons, with daughters and fathers, and when they were tired ate mythical fire-berries to regain their strength before returning to the skies. Frank had seldom known a mind so well honed, so clever, so creative.

To be friends with Edmund Pevensie, Frank quickly came to appreciate, was to be friends with his siblings. There was the aforementioned Peter, in his third year, who had joined up a few months before the end of the War and had in that short time received more medals that seemed possible. This made him somewhat of a mythical figure on campus, and he was also the President of the Union Society, among other notable achievements. Since he was in his third and final year, he had the enviable luxury of being granted a set of rooms, a bedroom and study/living room conjoined, and they would often gather there in the evenings, to toast crumpets over the fire, either with a circle of friends – the Pevensies were both intellectual and sporty fellows, so the company was usually a handsome mix of all sorts, but it was always a felicitous mix, with not a single one daring to be boorish. There was something civilising about the Pevensies. There were also the evenings that Frank liked best, the quiet ones, where it was just him and the brothers, and sometimes they smuggled in the sisters, even though it was of course strictly against the rules. Susan, Edmund’s elder sister, had graduated last year; she had been 17 when the war ended, and had gone to university straight away, as conscription for women was only from age 20, whereas the poor men had to join up as soon as they turned 18. Susan had studied Law at Newnham College, and was among the second class of women to be awarded a full Cambridge degree (all Pevensies held forth that it was shameful that Cambridge had been among the last universities to grant full degrees to women – why, Oxford had given them out the year Susan was born!), and she was now a legal secretary for a barrister in nearby law firm, although it seemed she did most of the barristering aside from the actual Court appearances – she wished to go into the diplomatic service, and Frank believed she would be very good at it indeed, but had been advised that she lacked experience and credentials, so was now chairing about 10 charitable committees alongside her legal work, to ensure that she was never told she lacked experience again, and she seemed to be handling all the responsibility extremely adroitly. Had she been a man, she would no doubt have been accepted right out of university, with her first class degree in Law from Cambridge, but such was the way of the world. The youngest of the four, Lucy, was a second-year student also at Newnham, studying theology. Both boys thought it monstrously unfair that their younger sisters should get degrees before them, and did not think it right that men should be forced to do National Service when women were exempt – as if women were any less competent or willing to serve their country! The two sisters expressed their pleasure that their brothers should express such sentiments.

“As if we’d dared to do differently,” said Edmund. “I know who the people to be feared are in this room, and it’s not me, Pete or Frank.”

Frank privately disagreed on Peter and Edmund. It wasn’t that they were frightening, as such, but all four Pevensies could be intimidating. All of them have the same unconscious aura of command that made them natural leaders of their respective social circles, but none of them seemed to realise it, and they were all fair and kind to those less popular than them. They despised bullying with all possible fervour, and many of those who were invited to the gatherings with the Pevensies were those who would have been the outcasts at Marchester, the ones who didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the group – but they all blossomed under the attention of the Pevensies, who had a tendency to bring out the best in people.

“Funny you think that,” Edmund said when he voiced the thought. “I used to be a bully.”

“I find that very hard to believe,” Frank objected. “Such a stand-up fellow as you? I don’t believe you’ve been anything but gracious in your life.”

“No, believe me, Edmund was truly beastly,” Peter confirmed.

“Absolutely horrid,” Lucy agreed. Susan didn’t say anything, but that did more to cement their agreement than Peter and Lucy chiming in, since he was sure she would have objected if she felt her siblings were being unfair.

Edmund made a face.

“You don’t need to rub it in,” he said. “It was over ten years ago, and I like to think I’ve changed since.”

His siblings were quick to confirm that he had, and the conversation moved on to other more pleasant topics. But it still stuck with Frank. Obviously Edmund’s beastliness had been of a different kind than his, but if Edmund could overcome his beastliness and become such a shining exemplar of humanity, well, Frank had always done best when he had examples to live up to. But it had been far less than decade since Frank had engaged in beastly behaviour and thoughts.

Both Pevensies had attempted to join the fencing club, and in early October, when Edmund was finally told he was no longer welcome, he took the news with equanimity and good cheer.

“Pete said it was a load of rubbish, but I wanted to see for myself,” he said. “I only joined because there was no proper sword fighting club on campus.”

“Why did they throw you out?” Frank said, who could never conceive of anyone not wanting the company of Edmund (or, indeed, any Pevensie, but Edmund especially).

“Because I believe the aim of fencing is to use a rapier to win a fight,” he said, “but the fencing club seem to believe the aim is to prance about with a pointy stick and pretend to be dashing.”

“I’m sure you looked very dashing,” Frank said, and immediately regretted it. What would Edmund think? What sort of fellow said that thing about another, even if they were good friends?

Edmund gave him an inscrutable look before grinning.

“I’m sure I did, but that’s a side matter, not the actual objective. After all, I always look dashing.”

Frank threw a pillow at him, since that seemed the required response, and felt relieved that he hadn’t messed it up, after all.

It was a beautiful autumn, dry and warm, the kind you only really read about, that never seemed to happen in real life, where autumn tended to be a miserable and wet affair. But this one was not. It was as if someone on high, God Himself, perhaps, had wanted everything to be a perfect fairy tale for Frank that autumn, a veritable feast of loveliness. The weather stayed mild and they still spent time in the afternoons on the banks of the river, and, because this was Cambridge, going punting. Frank was extremely gratified to find that there was something that Edmund was not good at.

“I just need to practice,” Edmund said. “I haven’t got the hang of it yet, that’s all.”

“The trick is to steer with the punt,” Frank said. “It’s actually quite intuitive. Don’t fight the water, follow it, use it.”

“I’m sure it’s perfectly intuitive,” Edmund griped. “If you have the right intuition. Unfortunately, I seem to have been granted the wrong one. Give me a rowboat any day, or even better, a proper sailing ship. Ah, to be on the sea, the wind in the sails, open skies above and water all around you, the creaking of the wood beneath you, the sounds of sailors cursing below deck.”

Something wistful came over his face.

“When were you ever on such a ship?” Frank asked. “It sounds like something from the Napoleonic era, or even earlier – before they invented steam ships. Did you, perhaps, sail on the Golden Hind? Circumnavigate the world with Sir Francis Drake?”

Edmund laughed.

“You’re not far off. It was an experience, to say the least. Lucy was there, and our cousin Eustace. You don’t know him, he’s a few years younger than us. He was horrid to start off with, but became rather decent by the end of it. We spent a jolly time on board, and sailed almost to the edge of the world.”

And so engaging was he, that Frank forgot until later that he hadn’t actually said anything about where and when he had been on such a ship.

*

Frank soon found that almost all his thoughts led back to Edmund, and he had little mental capacity over to focus on things like his studies, or sports, or other clubs and societies, except those Edmund were also a part of, and during those meetings, he would stare almost exclusively at Edmund, and not attend to what other people were doing. Edmund was so dashingly handsome, it was almost a crime. Most students at Cambridge wore suits under their robes, and Edmund looked better than most. His suit was not the most expensive, nor the most well-cut: it had been made the modern way, bought off the rack and then tailored to fit, rather than tailored right from the start, but it made no difference to the way the material clung to him, hanging off him, framing his lithe and powerful body. As Arts students, both Edmund and Frank wore robes also to lectures. It always took some time for the new fellows to get used to the robes, for they were heavy in the back and had a tendency to slip, and one had to learn how to hold one’s body straight so that they didn’t look awkward. Not so Edmund. He took to the robes as if he were born to them, as if the weight of the robes didn’t bother him, and held the posture to keep them up as if it were second nature – he looked like an upperclassman right from the start, not a fresher.

Oh, but the following months were full of blissful agony for Frank. He was determined not to spoil Edmund with his filth, as he was glad he hadn’t spoiled David who was one of his best friends now, but he couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to feel those strong arms around him, to feel those lips on his, to be to Edmund what Edmund was to him – even though it was an impossibility.

Would this curse be with him all his days? Schoolboy stuff, he had heard the things he and Hughes got up to referred to, and there was the expectation that one should leave it behind when one left school. As Hughes had done, who had been even more disgusting than Frank, who had leaned into those tendencies, openly and without shame, who had approached boys who were innocent and pure, who had not held himself back, and had been caught and expelled – Hughes, who now had a fiancée who he paraded happily around town, and made no secret of the fact that he was more looking forward to marrying her than to graduation, and that graduating Cambridge was merely a prerequisite her family (and his) insisted on before they were allowed to marry. Frank had settled things with Hughes, who thankfully held no grudge: it was rotten luck that he had gotten caught and not Frank, and Frank had indeed been very grateful Hughes had not snitched on the others who shared their predilections, for that would have spelt ruin for Frank as well. They had shaken hands and decided to be friends, and although Hughes was a student at Clare, not King’s, they saw each other around occasionally and exchanged nods and sometimes stopped to chat. But it rankled, a bit, that Hughes had done what he was supposed to, and found a girl. Hughes and Frank had shared a sexual tension and release together when they had no other outlets, but now they were no longer cut off from the world of girls, they in fact had rather close contacts with two colleges full of them, sharing lectures and clubs and societies and friendships, and Hughes had done as he’d ought, but Frank was struggling. He could not love girls – they were perfectly all right to have as friends, but not a one had set his heart beating and his pulse racing. Not a one had ever occupied his thoughts and dreams. Friendship with Edmund had even brought Frank into close contact with his two sisters, who shared many of the same traits he did; the same otherworldly beauty, the same regal bearing, the same unconscious grace, the same kindness. With Lucy Edmund shared the same witty humour, and with Susan he shared the same quick intellect and understanding. Yet it was Edmund that Frank desired, Edmund who captivated him, Edmund who he thought about in the dark nights in his room, Edmund who he wanted to impress, and who he wanted to pay attention to him, Edmund whose company he sought, who made him laugh, who held Frank’s happiness in his palm, and neither of his sisters.

While Edmund was pretty set on his studies in Modern Languages, claiming it would set him up nicely for a career in the Civil Service (privately, Frank had his suspicions about which parts of the Civil Service he was interested in, and the Foreign Office was the most benign of those – his other suspicions involved departments better known by combinations of letters and numbers), but he did admit that he had vaguely considered Classics.

“But the way it’s taught just makes it so dry. I don’t mind learning rules of grammar and doing translations – if I did I couldn’t study languages at all, but I do need some practical element. If there was a class on Conversational Latin, I probably would have taken it.”

“Conversational Latin might not be very useful, though,” Frank mused. “Unless you intend to make many trips to Ancient Rome or Mediaeval Europe. It’s been some years since Latin was used as a Lingua Franca, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, you never know about those trips,” Edmund said lightly. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Stranger things than travelling through time to Ancient Rome or Mediaeval Europe? Can you name one example?”

Edmund hummed, but didn’t answer, which Frank took as admittance that he couldn’t, and privately awarded himself the conversational victory.

“I rather wish you would have chosen Classics,” Frank found himself saying. “Then we would have shared lectures and tutorials. Although on second thoughts, maybe I don’t want you showing me up.”

“I’m sure I would have done nothing to show you up. I would probably have been the class dunce. All you Classics fellows seem so very clever.”

Edmund was draped over the entire two-seater sofa with his legs over one arm rest and his head over the other. The sofa was just short enough to make his feet and head dangle off the sides of the armrests, and it looked quite uncomfortable to Frank, who was sitting in a much more conventional way in the armchair across from him.

“All an illusion, I assure you.”

“Well, don’t _tell_ me that,” Edmund objected. “You shouldn’t depreciate yourself like that in front of others. Let them believe in your competence, even if it’s faked.”

“Is that what you do?”

“Never. My competence is entirely genuine, I assure you.”

Although this was said in a teasing tone, Frank entirely believed him.

“I think I would have had a game time studying Classics,” Edmund said. “Those Ancient Greeks were truly onto something, I think.”

Frank’s breath hitched, and he said nothing. Edmund didn’t look at him, but kept looking at the ceiling.

“I’ve always admired the male form,” he said. “Women do very little for me. They’re too soft, too round. But someone like you, well you’re nearly a perfect specimen of the human body.”

Did he know he was all but voicing Frank’s inner monologue aloud? Was this what this was? An accusation? Or a confession? Was he mocking Frank? They often teased each other, but there was nothing teasing in his countenance. Frank wished he would look at him, so he could see his face. Was he as frightened by voicing those words as Frank was by hearing them?

Frank tried to say something, but found his voice was gone. He cleared his throat.

“You’re dangerously close to speaking about illegal matters,” he croaked out eventually.

Edmund rolled his head around so he was looking straight at Frank, and sat up straight in the sofa. The space where he had rested his upper body gaped empty.

“Illegal? Perhaps. But not wrong. Not immoral.”

“Unnatural, some would say,” Frank said.

“I wouldn’t. I don’t believe it’s an affliction, the way some say. How can love be wrong?”

He caught Frank’s eyes and held them, in a clear invitation. Or was it? There seemed to be no room for misunderstanding, yet Frank feared that he was reading this all wrong, that he could ruin also this friendship, and maybe he wouldn’t be able to salvage it as he had salvaged his friendship with David. But Edmund’s hand was resting on the seat beside him, and the chance that he might be genuine seemed too intoxicating to resist. Frank slowly, carefully stood up from his chair and made his way over, to sit next to Edmund.

Edmund’s hand was resting between them, invitingly, and as a first step, Frank took it in his, and was rewarded with a brilliant smile. Edmund brought their joined hands up to cup Frank’s face. It was hard to say who took the first step to close the distance between them – possibly they both acted at the same time, wholly in concert with each other. Frank felt the taste of Edmund’s lips, slightly sweet after the pudding in Hall, and he could feel the gentle brush where there was a hint of stubble growing on Edmund’s chin. Edmund’s kiss was tender and tentative, as if to test if it was acceptable. And it was. Oh, it was.

David hadn’t reciprocated Frank’s feelings, and Frank was in a way glad of that. David was uncorrupted, above it all; their friendship remained pure. But Edmund. Edmund clearly returned his interest. Edmund was otherworldly, and he had known darkness, and had fought his way back into the light and made a place for himself, unafraid and unashamed. Edmund was irresistible, and charming, and, like Hughes, only too willing to follow where Frank led, and Frank should feel guilty for spoiling him, but he was weak, and he could but give in to temptation –

“Now hold on,” said Edmund as Frank inadvertently gave voice to his doubts. “I object to that version of events. You didn’t lead me anywhere, _I_ lead _you_. This isn’t something you’re doing to me – I choose this for myself. You haven’t spoiled me; I don’t see it as spoiling. And you are also, truly irresistible.”

And Frank leaned in and captured his mouth in another kiss.

*

Edmund had all sorts of notions, about their love not being filth, but beautiful, that seemed to fly in the face of all established wisdom, but he was so resolute in his convictions that Frank felt himself swept up by Edmund’s certainty. Why would God shun them? Did not God accept all those who loved, he asked. Frank wasn’t quite sure where he’d come across these notions – even those fellows who didn’t feel as much shame as Frank did kept their predilections hidden, out of fear of the police if nothing else. After all, more people knew of Oscar Wilde as a convicted sodomite than knew his plays, even at Cambridge (although at Cambridge at least many students pretended to have read them).

Edmund didn’t think what they had was an expression of schoolboy predilections to get over when one became an adult – it could certainly be like that for some, such as Hughes, who was head over heels for his fiancée (although Edmund expressed a suspicion that he might be trying too hard, either to convince society, or himself, which hadn’t struck Frank), but some boys would never change, even when they became men; their preferences were fixed, and no worse than those who took comfort from their fellows when there were no girls around – they were maybe even better, Edmund opined, as their love could be characterised as more pure – what those men found together was true love, beyond merely using one another for relief of those urges they had no other outlet for. This was far from anything Frank had heard expressed before, and he found a certain appeal in the thought – for who wanted to believe that he was a pervert?

Edmund wasn’t afraid of the police. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand that they could arrest him, he did, but more that he didn’t accept that they had the authority to, and nor did the other Pevensies. Legal authority, yes, absolutely, they acknowledged that, but not moral authority. While they agreed that it was good to follow the law in principle, they held their own morals as higher – and if they found a law unjust, the greater wrong was following it than breaking it. Frank had never before met anyone with such absolute faith in their own judgements. It was almost as if they could with their willpower alone change both the law and society. He admired it greatly, and also that they had put thought into _how_ they would change the law and society, which was more than most idealistic people their age had done.

There was a frankness and openness in the discussions at Cambridge that had been lacking at school, and never was this more apparent than with the Pevensies. The weather had finally turned grey and wet, and when autumn came it did so with a vengeance. Now they met in the various common rooms, and when they could get away with it, it Peter’s set. The Pevensies were very tactile, at least in private, and no-one batted an eye when Edmund leaned his head on Frank’s shoulder, or Frank took a seat on the floor between Edmund’s knees. He had been nervous, at first, at displaying such open affection, but when none of Edmund’ siblings treated him or Edmund any differently he relaxed.

Divinity was a regularly occurring subject matter during those evenings, as was the beauty of the world, a concept the Pevensies believed in very strongly. They believed in God strongly, too, but perhaps slightly differently than the Church of England did. They belonged to that small school of thought that could see God in anything, anywhere, and claimed to have met Him in a different form first – and had almost rejected the God in the C of E doctrine.

“The religion got in the way of the Divine,” Edmund said. “It took all of us some time to learn how to find God in the Church. Lucy still doesn’t think He can be found there.”

“No, indeed,” said Lucy lazily, stretched out with her head in Susan’s lap, eyes closed in bliss as her older sister combed her fingers through her hair. “God can he found in a meadow on a summer’s day, or on the banks of the River Cam, or in a perfectly toasted crumpet, or in the glistening of a snowflake, the warmth of the fire, the kindness of strangers, or the meeting of two lovers in a hidden alley. Not penned in, confined in Church. He defies any notion to pin him down, to define Him as one thing or another. He’s not a _tame_ God.”

Susan smiled slightly at her, and Frank had the sudden notion that she smiled exactly like the Sphinx, the same smile her brother had when he said something that could not be explained by conventional wisdom, such as circumnavigating the world, or where he had picked up an expertise in Mediaeval battle tactics.

“I can tell why you’re not the dons’ favourite,” Edmund said to Lucy.

“As if the dons know what they’re talking about!” Lucy exclaimed.

“And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the result of the first term of theology at the fine institution of Cambridge University,” said Edmund. “I see you have truly gained the benefits of higher education, and things cannot get better.”

Lucy blew raspberry at him.

“Why do you go if you think all the dons are full of piffle?” Frank asked curiously.

“Because I need to be able to make the right arguments and have the credentials to back me up when I tell them that they’re full of piffle,” Lucy said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. There was a general chorus of laughter, and they all agreed that that was very like Lucy. Frank wondered idly how Archdeacon Blaize would react to Lucy, and realised he hadn’t thought of David in weeks. This thought was accompanied by a sense of melancholia, or perhaps nostalgia was a better word. David had been his first true love, and would always mean a great deal to him. But David had his own life now, and was exploring the world under the flag of Her Majesty in the distinguished National Service, and Frank was here, with Edmund and his siblings, who were all extremely delightful. Frank was jealous that he had no siblings of his own.

“We can be your siblings,” generous Lucy offered as soon as he made any hint to that effect. “I will be a sister to you, and we’ll have some smashing times together, as brothers and sisters, won’t we?”

Susan agreed, and Peter clapped Frank on the shoulder to indicate brotherly affection. Edmund said nothing, but he looked over to Frank with a secret smile for Frank, and Frank understood it to mean that the love they shared was not the kind between brothers.

“You could claim them as your siblings, through me,” Edmund offered later, in private.

“That would mean telling them what we are to each other,” Frank objected. “That seems dangerous, when we’re so fragile.”

“We’re not fragile,” Edmund said. “And you can trust my siblings. But I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to. Although, if you think that Susan, at least, doesn’t already know, then I’m afraid you have a great deal to learn about her.”

Frank tried to put that thought out of his mind. It was all so easy for Edmund, but the self-doubts and self-loathing still ate at Frank occasionally – although less so than before, for how could he loathe himself for something he loved Edmund for? He kept his doubts to himself, or tried to, but he clearly didn’t do a very good job of it, for Edmund took him to task over it.

“Don’t say things like that about my fellow,” Edmund scolded, and it still sent a thrill through Frank whenever he called him that. “I happen to be rather fond of the chap, and I get upset when you denigrate him.”

“I can’t help it,” Frank said. “It’s difficult to break the habit of a lifetime.”

“Well, then I shall give you something more pleasurable to focus on, and convince you that something that feels so good cannot possibly be sinful.”

There was a flaw in Edmund’s argument there, but as he leaned in to kiss Frank and his distracting hands occupied all of Frank’s attention, Frank couldn’t for the life of him work out what it was.

*

“You know,” Frank said as they were lying next to each other on his narrow single bed. “I always wondered where you got your ideas about love, and religion. They’re very queer, and I’ve never met anyone outside your family who shares them.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Edmund said, crammed in beside him, with his head on Frank’s shoulders.

“I’d believe anything you told me,” Frank said sincerely.

Edmund looked up to meet his eyes, and started to talk. He spoke for a good, long while, and it was a riveting tale, full of adventure, magic, and both horror and beauty. It seemed unbelievable, but it explained so much, and all the pieces that hadn’t fit fell in place. The unconscious air of command he had, the way his eyes sometimes held shadows beyond his years in them. Why he fit in with the fellows who’d seen active fighting during their Service. Where he’d had the opportunity to travel on a wooden sailing ship for an extended time. His odd notions about the Divine that weren’t to be found in any Scripture. Frank could see the shape of the King he had been in the student he knew. He saw how the responsibility of managing a Kingdom had lefts its marks, and he could see how well Edmund had done in the shape of those marks.

Edmund’s eyes were still on Frank’s as he finished his tale, and he seemed nervous – waiting for Frank’s reaction, to see if he was believed or not. Frank could understand the impulse.

“You’re actually a King, then?” he asked, and hoped to convey with his face and tone that he did believe him. “Should I be bowing and calling you Your Majesty?”

Edmund huffed a laugh.

“There’s no need for that, you prat. I’m still just Edmund. Same as I was before. I haven’t changed because you now know more about my history than you did before.”

“You’re not ‘just’ Edmund,” Frank objected. “There’s nothing ‘just’ about you.”

Edmund laughed again.

“Did I forget to mention that I was known as the Just King?”

“No, you must have left that part out.”

“It sounded a bit conceited. When we went back to Narnia the second time, Peter introduced himself as the Magnificent, and I knew then I would never lead with my title like that.”

“Yes, calling yourself Just is exactly as conceited as calling yourself Magnificent,” Frank teased. “I don’t know how you fit your ego in my narrow bed, Just Edmund.”

“Hush you,” Edmund replied. “There’s plenty of space left over, where your self-esteem ought to be. I can easily fit my ego into that space.”

Edmund had made comments such as that before, and Frank knew that the way he felt was neither constructive nor helpful, and also a bit insulting to Edmund (for, if he felt such disgust for himself, how did he not feel the same to Edmund?), but he always felt uncomfortable when Edmund brought it up. His feelings were his own to deal with, and his to work through. That didn’t mean he couldn’t take Edmund’s help, of course.

“How certain are you that Aslan and God are one and the same?” he asked. “They share some superficial similarities, and they are both deities of some kind, but they do seem different. How do you square Aslan’s love for all expressions of love with the restrictions of the scriptures, and the far less forgiving Christian God?”

“You really should talk to Lucy about this,” Edmund said. “She’s the one who’s studying theology – although if you can call what she’s doing actually studying theology is another question best left to some other time. And she’s always had a deeper connection to Aslan than the rest of us – maybe because she’s the youngest and Aslan has a special soft spot for children, or maybe because she discovered Narnia first. Either way, she’s probably better placed to answer those questions than I am.”

“I’m not going to discuss the finer points of sodomy with your younger sister!” Frank objected.

“She’s heard far worse,” Edmund dismissed. “Do you know, in Narnia—”

And here he told a story so scandalous that Frank blushed to hear it, and had to silence him with a kiss.

“Well, if you’d rather discuss the finer points of sodomy with me, who am I to object?” Edmund asked rhetorically when they broke the kiss and emerged for air.

“Actually, I find debating these matters overrated, and am far more interested in a practical demonstration.”

“Frank Maddox, not interested in debating! This is most unlike you. Are you feeling well?”

He put a hand on Frank’s forehead, as if to test his temperature.

“It is your fault. You have undone me.”

“Then let me undo you some more.”

And, just as Frank had requested, they left their theoretical discussions for practice.

*

The Michaelmas term seemed to fly by, and soon the Christmas holiday was upon them. Frank was invited to spend part of it with the Pevensies, and accepted with alacrity. He’d spend actual Christmas with his mother, of course, but would come up to London to be with the Pevensies over the New Year.

Frank’s family straddled the line between upper and middle class, and he found he fit in well in both environments – both with the solicitors his Uncle mixed with, and the barristers and Queen’s Counsels his schoolmates had in their families. The Pevensies were more unambiguously middle class – their father was a clerk, their mother at home, and they had one room for the boys and one room for the girls. This put something of a damper on their relationship, for there wasn’t many opportunities to get up to much with Edmund when there was always a chance that his elder brother could walk in, and while Frank was very fond of Peter, he sometimes found himself resenting the older boy’s presence. Luckily it seemed Peter understood that Frank and Edmund were particularly close friends, and that while he had come to see all the Pevensies, he was there especially for Edmund, and would occasionally tactfully withdraw to give them some privacy. Frank only realised that this was entirely deliberate when Lucy cheerfully stuck her head into their room and told them that she, Susan, and Peter were taking their mother shopping and expected to be gone all day, but wasn’t it such a shame Frank was feeling poorly and wasn’t Ed a champion for volunteering to stay with him so he wouldn’t feel lonely. Frank, who had been feeling rather the opposite of poorly, was somewhat mystified, but Lucy was so used to getting her way and cheerfully bullying her siblings into what was best for them, that they had all stopped protesting, and she had recently taken to giving Frank the same treatment, so he rather bewilderedly agreed. The salacious wink she levelled at them as she withdrew drove the point home, however.

Frank felt his cheeks heat up, and had to hide his face under the covers to hide his embarrassment. He couldn’t hide it from Edmund, however, who found the entire thing hilarious.

“I told you they’d figured it out ages ago,” he said.

“Please, let me die,” Frank pleaded.

“Come now, it’s not as bad as that. They like you.”

Frank did not say ‘God knows why’ (or even ‘Aslan knows why’, as the Pevensies sometimes did), even though he thought it, and considered that progress.

Looking back, Frank would probably class those two weeks he spent in the Pevensie’s terraced house in the suburbs of London as some of the happiest of his life, discovering the beauty of life and love with Edmund. Lucy had been the first to allude to it, but he was astonished to find that all of Edmund’s siblings knew about them, and none of them minded. Frank would have been happy if the topic was never raised again, but the Pevensies were not the type to avoid uncomfortable topics just because they were uncomfortable, and knowing that he was aware of their time in Narnia, clearly felt they could speak frankly with him as they did with each other. Frank had never known anyone who didn’t share in his desire for the same sex to accept that it was within the bounds of normality, and nothing to be ashamed of, and to some extent, it continued the process that Edmund had started of healing and acceptance. In some way, the acceptance of Edmund’s family healed a hurt that he could not, that perhaps that no lover of his ever could heal – a hurt that could only be healed by the knowledge that there were people who knew who he was, weren’t attracted to him, but yet weren’t repulsed. They each assured him that they had seen all kinds of love in Narnia, and that Aslan loved all His Creatures, and they weren’t at all as backwards about these things as contemporary English society was. As long as they were good to each other and didn’t hurt each other, then all was good, and Aslan loved even Frank Maddox – maybe especially Frank Maddox, for he had struggled so with himself, and still remained good.

Frank believed them. When he was told so by four Kings and Queens (never mind that nobody but them and a handful other people even knew of the Kingdom’s very existence), who were so utterly convinced of their own convictions, who had spoken directly to an aspect of God (or a God of another world, it was still a bit unclear what Aslan actually was, and even a two-hour-long conversation with Lucy hadn’t quite managed to disentangle these questions), who had steel in their spine and who were so absolute in their beliefs, it was hard not to.

He was good, and beloved by God, and most importantly, beloved by Edmund.


End file.
